


Reflection and anticipation

by tothemovies (jarofactonbell)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, but since when have we gotten more info on team 8, i have to do everything in this house smh kishi STEP UP, some parts of this is canon, that's right never, what a bunch of assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 15:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17563064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofactonbell/pseuds/tothemovies
Summary: Or, Team 8 on backwards and forward looking through the years





	Reflection and anticipation

**Author's Note:**

> I was going for a timeline format but I have jobs and responsibilities now so this is the best I could scrounge up for team 8 week but I will finish this at some other time
> 
> and it's a bit AU-ish but team 8 would have this sibling bickering dynamic had kishimoto given them more time to develop together but i guess we can't all have what we want huh
> 
> wait actually this is super removed from the prompt but I TRIED OKAY i get brownie points for trying

“We are at a marker of our lives, a turning point in time where we can look back and reflect as well as gaze ahead and -”

What would transpire next is promptly shoved aside by Kiba's bark of -

_“We can do stuff, like, unsupervised now!”_

“I give up,” Shino throws up his shoulders, almost tearing a tendon, or five. His hands remain firmly in his pockets. “Someone do the emotional and obligatory speech next year.”

“But Aburame-san,” Hinata whispers, stepping sideways to preemptively avoid Akamaru's excited jogs around their legs. “You were doing so well.”

“We can't get this to work if he keeps,” Shino swings his elbows violently, “being like _that_.”

“I suppose,” Hinata side eyes Kiba and Akamaru, clones of each other now, “we must bear the burden of fulfilling our social obligations and alternate between the two of us, in giving this new year speech tradition.”

“And our jonin sensei,” he solemnly reminds her.

“And our jonin sensei,” she miserably echoes, a note of abject weariness in her voice.

\---

“Back last year, I was a moron -”

“Kiba, you're still a moron now. You have always been a moron. Things haven't changed much."

"Last year was literally a minute ago.”

“Lilly, your words _sting._ No, put that bee back where it came from, Shino, or Tsume will help me -”

“What if this year, it will be a kunai to my eyes and ears so I won't have to encounter you or your presence ever again.”

“Shino-kun, then you'll be sad and miserable. Even more than you are today.”

“Someone call Sakura, I've just witnessed a murder.”

“I'm throwing the both of you down the garbage chute in the clan's compound.”

“He's not denying it, Kiba-kun.”

“Aww, you'll miss me that much, my tall awkward caterpillar child?”

“We are next to a bonfire. I suggest you choose your words carefully, or else I will throw you in and incinerate you alive.”

“I want Shino-chan to have more emotions this year!”

“I want Hinata and you to go away and leave me be.”

“I wish that we could get an apartment together and become our best selves, so that sensei can be proud of us!”

“Hmm, too far."

“Have a little faith, Kiba-kun.”

“How does it feel, to be on the losing side now, Hinata?”

“I'm going to prove you both wrong.”

“You will have me cooking you both food when that becomes a reality. I swear on Akamaru.”

_“Deal.”_

\---

The first thing Kurenai did when they were made aware that the four of them would exist under an organisational lump of Team 8, was make them hold hands in a circle of hissing and glaring pre-teen ninja brats and tell them to _now talk about what you aren't happy with each other._

Looking at back it, that was both a nightmare to endure and an opportunity to grow. But the good would only emerge marginally.

Kiba's hoodie was infested with fleas for _weeks._ Hinata had dog drool on the back of her knees and behind her ears. Shino somehow couldn't apply chakra to his left leg.

They were absolute menaces to each other, not to Kurenai, mind you, but fellow genin pre-teen brats were fair game - still would be, no matter what they turn out to become.

Shino and Hinata jointly told off Kiba for _being a source of 60% of Konoha's noise pollution, next to Naruto's clanking pots and pulling pranks._

Kiba barked back - he surely did, as long as the clan and name _Inuzuka_ flows in his blood - _you guys are too uptight and hold onto your stupid little traditions for too long don't call me stupid when you're not even that smart yourselves._

And then the chain of scuffles erupted. Kurenai meditated, reached into her inner mind for peace and a persuasion louder than the burgeoning urge of quitting and signing up to ANBU. But she would be damned if she quit then - the bet between her, Genma and Asuma would undoubtedly fall to Asuma's favour. And while she would willingly take him out - romantically or taijutsu-ly - there were money and _shinobi code of honour_ and _dignity_ riding on the bet and she was not at a position to lose.

She let her new team bicker, and wondered if scheduled kumbaya sessions ought to be a weekly or monthly occurrence, among essential shinobi training.

\---

Shino comes back from the mission, visibly shaking, his fingers wild with tremors and Hinata catches a hand, while Kiba holds another.

“You're alright,” Yuuhi tells him,  “we got you.”

Kiba helpfully doesn't say anything, just slides a hand under Shino's hood and lies a hot palm on the back of his neck, no pressure, just heat.

Hinata is channeling pure chakra into him. In any other circumstances he would have called this an open act of declaring lifelong friendship with him, but can't find the voice or cynicism to.

Only Akamaru has the right of mind to bark out a variation that roughly translates to _kumbaya_ and Shino breathes in, breath rattling in his kungs, and thinks _yeah, alright, home._

\---

“Our gracious water lily sent me a scroll,” Kiba dashes by his side, waving the very much upside down message in any other place but in reach for Shino to attain.

Kiba continues, oblivious to his ever constant status as an extension of problems. “I don't know what she's saying.”

His words have left him years ago when he was put on this team. He reaches over, mid jump, and turns the scroll the right way up, to reveal the content of the message.

“Oh,” Kiba lifts an eyebrow. If this was him a couple of years ago, he would have thrown a tantrum worthy of a minor flea infestation lasting a week. But this Kiba now blinks over the loops of cursive in Hinata's rushed penmanship, stained with faint bloody fingerprints. She's not hurt, he is certain, but he can't guarantee the same for whoever she was sent to dispatch. Ever since she paired up with Lee and the local Suna Spooky Puppet Alliance and their chakra strings, she had grown up all too silent, deadly and calm. Occasionally she sends back scrolls reporting her progress in her studies. Occasionally they get cheques in the mail in their shared Team 8 apartment, with Yuuhi-nee-san dropping in and out. Occasionally there are sightings of her made, in other nations, brought to them by various other shinobis.

It worries them at a maximum of a second when a frightened and awed chuunin recounts when Hinata cut off several nerve points and arteries with her bare hands while weaving chakra strings just as easily with her elbows. They're worried because now the baby ninjas are traumatised and _they_ have to provide for the necessary psych check ups, and can't Hinata be responsible, _why me, Hokage?_

Tsunade would, again and again, tell them to get over themselves and slide over the documentations necessary to turn up at a session with a resident Yamanaka.

“Is she having fun?” He asks Kiba, mind absently wondering about the orphans by the west side of the village that he should invite over to dinner.

“You know lady, she's always having a blast, don't give me that look, she is, and we're hearing it all from her and not from some glass spine gremlins, so I have faith that we will have minimal contact hours with Ino reorganising our heads again,” Kiba rambles, tucking away the scroll, hair in a loose ponytail.

“I don't trust the both of you,” he promises earnestly, and Kiba barks out an equally delighted laugh, filled with the joy derived from sheer misery of his partner.

“That's the spirit! Wanna drag nii-san and his team over for dinner?”

“Kiba, you are cooking. Who you invite would truly and fully bother me when they turn out to be the mission desk admins who keep giving me missions where I cannot utilise my kikaichu. Other than that, invite every missing nin you run across. Ask all the ninkens over. I don't really give a damn. I don't have a problem with anything you do. Haven't had for a while, and never will.”

Kiba sniffs, and hops ahead of him, and smacks into a laundry line.

“Well done,” he skips ahead.

“You disgust me,” Kiba yells after him. “And Lady is passing by for new year!”

He is already moving events and chores around so that they can prepare properly for their annual new year celebration. It will be nicer this year. It gets nicer every year.

Probably. Always a great time to look back and improve and pray that somewhere, a deity or someone, can turn some screws in Kiba's dog-kicked brain to rev up some engines for maximal capacity and for Hinata to stop being a terrorising presence.

\---

They truly come as a team, specifically, when new year comes. Only because they _have_ to and are _threatened into cooperation_ , not because they specifically _want_ to.

Their respective clans recognise the importance of clan relations between three old and recognised and influential and _blah blah blah whatever_ rubbish his uncles drone on and on at meetings. Kiba had never once listened and will never dedicate his mind to listening. He's not a clan head in training. He can nap when he feels sleepy. The hell is uncle Yoshi going to do to him, _scold_? Yeah, nah.

But Hana nagged and mother broke three clan training arenas and he trudged up to the annual New Year Aburame-Hyuga-Inuzuka forces bonding session and took excessive sadistic glee when he realised how much the Aburame and Hyuga equally hated this particular lineup as well.

“We cannot sever these meetings, for they will prove detrimental for our collective and individual futures at the point of the break,” Aburame Shino solemnly concluded, after a rare frantic whatever-how-long discussion they willingly initiated without any bloodshed.

“I absolutely despise your face but you are right,” he groaned. “No way out at all?”

“Perhaps they hoped that we would eliminate one another, so that the clans will have less mouths to feed and less faces to be disappointed at,” Hinata suggested.

“Hyuga,” he told her, “that's morbid. No. You're not a disappointment. You know what though, let's have a new year resolution -”

“Your non sequiturs intrigue me,” Aburame lamented, with one ounce of weariness that stayed and went with the hum of his words.

“Yeah, first, Hyuga Hinata, stop being terrible to yourself. You is good, you is fine, you will get better and be _the best._ Aburame Shino, talk like a goddamn teenager once in your life and ditch the ancient Warring States dramatic dialogue, you will bore anyone interested in any of _this_ ,” he gestured to Aburame's _everything,_ “away.”

“Your resolution should be you being excommunicated from the village,” Shino grumbled.

Huh. He's just Shino now, _huh_.

“My resolution is to think of you with your names and not your clans,” he declared, throwing out arms that were deftly sidestepped.

“Impossible,” Shino declared.

“I'm gonna commit now, just to prove you wrong,” he promised, even with Hinata spluttering and apologising for _breathing,_ damn, Tsume would whisk her away in no time if she could bother fighting Hizashi about heirs and children.

“Do as you like, Inuzuka-sama,” Shino bowed mockingly.

“I'm sor -” Hinata started, again, but Kiba was filled with a righteous sense of duty to right these two misguided souls, so he shut her off and waved excited claws all in front of their noses.

“No more negativity! New year, new us!”

\---

She puts a foot onto the apartment and already there is a dog, a flying apron, and a sister hurtling themselves all at her.

She caught all things, of course, but that wasn't very nice of them to do that.

They could have gotten hurt! Or worse, nagged by Shino.

“Hello lily,” he mocks, from the front door, “I can hear you bad talk me in your head.”

“Odd,” she smiles, toeing off her shoes, “I am doing nothing of the sort.”

“Disgusting,” he stares down at her through his glasses. “Come in. Help us set the table. Hanabi, she needs to move. Either pick up your feet or let go. I expect a set table in a minute’s time. Your call, Hanabi.”

Hanabi hooks her feet around the back of Hinata's knees and pokes a defiant tongue at Shino. He scoffs, turns a quick heel to the kitchen, long overcoat swishing at his legs.

“New year,” she states, when they have all gathered.

“Down with the speech!” Kiba holds up a vicious fist.

“Down with Kiba,” Shino chews.

“I wish that Yuuhi-nee-san will have a baby girl so that they can have matching kimono on the battlefield,” she clasps her hands together. “And that the three of us finish up our mortgage interest loan this coming year.”

Kiba scoffs at _mortgage._ Shino scrawls in his notebook, arranging events and payments around.

“Fuck the interest,” is all he contributes to the conversation.

“Down with the economy!” Hanabi cheers, knocking her elbows across Akamaru's nose who yelps and near splits the table in half.

Hinata barely saved it. She doesn't fancy another trip to the carpenter and explaining that she has residents who are ninken and very overgrown in civilian pet standards and that _no, Mr Tanaka, it's alright that I'm replacing the desk for the fifth time this month, it is not the dog's fault._

“The economy can get fucked,” she whispers, some shade of venom in her voice.

“Hyuga-sama, we raised you better than that!”

“She's allowed one F bomb a year, close your mouth, Kiba, or a beetle will permanently set up residence under your tongue.”

“Never return for new year ever again,” Kiba begs her. "We're fine. We love you, but don't come back. So we don't have to sit through this every year."

She only smiles, and toasts to the long ago faded semantics of reflection and anticipation of the new year and downs the shot of warm sake. It trickles like warm fire down the column of her throat.

**Author's Note:**

> For team8week day #7 - looking back//looking forward
> 
> also please be my nart moot it's only me and my feelings out here on [twitter](https://twitter.com/tacobell_com) and [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny)


End file.
